New Orleans Hornets' next TV deal could solve access problems for Northshore viewers and beyond

A proposed new cable television contract for the New Orleans Hornets, negotiated completely by the NBA and apparently consummated with Fox Sports' regional networks, will provide the team's game telecasts to viewers in St. Tammany Parish and other areas that did not receive the Cox Sports Television signal, a league source said Tuesday.

Sports Business Journal reported that Cox opted not to compete with Fox for the Hornets' next television deal, leaving Fox the only serious bidder for the team's telecast rights, the source said.

Comcast was apparently a third potential bidder, according to a source, but not a serious one.

Attempts to reach Rod Mickler, the head of Cox Sports Television, were unsuccessful.

The Hornets would not confirm or deny knowledge of a new cable television deal.

"The process in regard to a new TV contract is not complete," Hornets spokesman Harold Kaufman said, "but at the appropriate time, an annoucment will be made."

The league source who did confirm the network switch indicated a new deal would likely be announced in mid-June.

No one at the NBA, which technically still owns the team (the NBA Board of Governors has yet to formally approve the sale to Tom Benson) could be reached to comment on the Sports Busines Journal report.

But a league source said the new deal, which Sports Business Journal indicated was comparable to the Charlotte Bobcats' agreement that pays the team a little more than $10 million annually, would be a modest increase from the original 10-year, $100 million contract which Cox entered into with the Hornets in 2002.

Throughout the decade of the agreement with CST, television viewers not served by Cox Communications had difficulty viewing Hornets' telecasts because cable providers such as Charter Communications in St. Tammany did not carry the CST signal.

Last year, Charter and Cox came to an agreement in which the CST signal would be available to Charter subscribers for an additional $5 fee.

Satellite dish systems, such as DirecTV would still have to negotiate their own deals to acquire the signal.

The proposed deal with Fox's regional networks would make that network's signal available to all Charter subscribers on the cable provider's basic tier of services, meaning Hornets games would be available to a much wider audience.